


Unexplainable Observations

by celluloid



Category: Ant-Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Acceptance, Angst, Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018), F/M, Gen, Introspection, Mental Breakdown, Non-Linear Narrative, Self-Doubt, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 18:55:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15297855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celluloid/pseuds/celluloid
Summary: Classical physics can't explain everything. Neither can Scott Lang.Or: being trapped in the quantum realm would completely fuck with just about anybody.





	Unexplainable Observations

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly think the ending of Ant-Man and the Wasp left me even more anxious for Avengers 4 to come out than Infinity War did. Don't get me wrong, Infinity War was still crushing, but there's just something so uniquely despairing about a single person, completely alone, with no knowledge of why what happened to him happened.
> 
> In other words, I've been having a lot of Scott Lang feelings lately. They're all sad!

He’s thinking about ants.

There’s— There are so many more important things to think about. But. Ants.

Like how Ant-thony gave his life for him. And how Ant-onio Banderas would still be alive today, probably, if he hadn’t called for him (not to mention all of the other ants who died before that one brief success). 

But… they’re ants. Even when commanding them, seeing them up close, fully well knowing they cannot be assigned human qualities, that’s not how ants work at all, it’s hard to distance himself, sometimes. Should he feel bad about basically treating each and every one of them as replaceable? About their deaths that wouldn’t have happened if he had just left them alone? But they probably would have died some other way by now anyway, right? Oh, god, he hopes not. _Life can’t be that meaningless, can it?_ he wonders, as he’s recalling every ant friend he’s ever had and how he’d just get a new one immediately after to suit his own needs.

Is he going to ant-hell?

Is there an ant-hell? Does that mean there’s an ant-heaven? Is that where Ant-thony is? Ant-thony was a good ant. What would ants do in ant-heaven, anyway? Endless food, an endlessly growing hill, everyone working together seamlessly in blissful eternity? How would ant-god punish ants in ant-hell? Paths perpetually obstructed? No hill? No fellow ants, just despairing, directionless solitude?

Scott looks around.

… Is he in ant-hell? Did he just dream all of that quantum realm stuff, and now this is his punishment for eternity, for treating ants as disposable even when he really, really did love them?

Something he never would have expected. The growing fond of ants thing, not the being in ant-hell part. He’s honestly not too surprised about that.

If there’s an ant-hell, then does that mean there’s a people-hell? Why wouldn’t he be in people-hell instead of ant-hell? He wasn’t that great of a person. But he was still more of a person than an ant. Hell, he was never an ant to begin with.

… Right?

Right.

… Right?

Scott holds out his hands. He’s still in the suit, but from what he can tell, they’re still the hands of a person. He kicks out his feet; he still only has four limbs. He still has a concept of self, he thinks, but he can’t be too sure anymore.

What he wouldn’t give to be able to hop on Ant-thony’s back one more time and just fly out of here. But even that’s meaningless now, and not just because Ant-thony is dead, has been dead for years, but because he’s just so much smaller. The very idea of an ant is so unfathomably huge to him.

He’s a person, he’s a grown human adult male, and if he were able to get any kind of glimpse of an ant he’s pretty sure it would break his mind. He’s run among them, worked among them, picked up some of Hank’s eccentricities and has just adapted to them being around, no matter the size. But this… this isn’t size.

Scott is somewhere in San Francisco. He also isn’t.

So he shuts his eyes and drifts. Because once Hope’s voice was lost, with it he lost all concept of time - but he knows enough to know nobody is coming for him.

* * *

Scott screams until he loses his voice. His throat is raw and it aches just by existing. He can’t breathe properly. He doesn’t cry easily, but he’s all out of tears. His chest is heaving as he struggles to get himself back under some kind of control, desperate to not move lest he be lost, restricted to curling in a ball and just trying to stop shaking.

Why did they stop responding to him? Why didn’t they bring him back?

The first thing he thinks is that something went wrong with the equipment. If that’s the case, this will go one of three ways: either he’ll be fine, he’ll be fine but it’ll take a while, or he’s lost forever.

The first one, there, is most likely. He has a lifeline of three of the most brilliant quantum physicists who know exactly where he is and are working to get him back. Flaws and bugs happen all the time - maybe a literal bug caused the problem? - but if there’s anybody who can get him out, it’s Hank, Hope, or Janet. All three of them together? He’s just gotta sit tight for a few minutes and then he’ll be back.

When those few minutes pass, he goes to number two: it’s going to take a while, like it took him, Hank, and Hope a while to actually get to Janet. There probably aren’t any supervillains this time, but he’s familiar with a piece of equipment becoming damaged and not having an immediate replacement. In which case, they’ll get it. Hope will get it. She’s too good not to.

Or it could be a little more disastrous, and he could be stuck for decades like Janet… But at least they know exactly where he is.

So he’ll be fine.

Scott suppresses the urge to scream again, just as he suppresses the third possibility.

* * *

His life could not have been more by the books.

Well, that’s not entirely true, but it was pretty average. Be born. Go to school. Make friends. Get a masters in electrical engineering. Get a girlfriend. Become a cat burglar. Get married. Have a little girl. Get arrested. Go to prison.

In hindsight, it’s easy to see where he went wrong. But everything else was just so painfully average, and he liked that. Was life the most fulfilling? No. Did it need to be? Absolutely not. The first time he held Cassie in his arms…

And he didn’t stop. It wasn’t that he had broken his promise to Maggie, it’s that he had broken it to Cassie, and more than anything else, that’s what he can’t forgive himself for. Everything - everything - should have stopped once she came into his life. How he could forget what it was like when that little hand gripped his finger, when those big eyes stared up into his own… Wasany other injustice in the world worth giving that up?

It’s hard not to be familiar with the Avengers, but to some degree, they had all asked for it. He had never joined the military. He had never been experimented on. He wasn’t a part of any super secret spy organizations. He didn’t even build his own suit, he just stole it. So that was his way of asking for it, though he’d shown no other exceptionalism, completely unlike the rest of them.

But even that was just so he could hold his little girl again. His origin story was a tendency towards non-violent crimes and the flawed American justice system. He had zero other motives - and for that, he found himself in the quantum realm.

And back out.

And teaming up with Captain America.

And back in prison.

How was it he kept falling into these scenarios? He worked with, his best friends were other ex-cons, and nothing like this happened to any of them. What was it about him, Scott Lang, specifically, that found him in a place only two other people had ever been in before? Not even Hope had visited the quantum realm.

As Scott looks around at all of the everything and nothingness, he hopes she never has to.

* * *

The thing is, Scott has been around violent people more than he’d care for.

Ava had been like that. Bill had been like that. He’s pretty sure neither are enemies; not after Janet helped Ava; not after they didn’t quite understand, but at least empathized, with her pain. Not after they unanimously agreed to help her, not just because she needed and deserved it, but because they were all uniquely bound, a group of six people who nobody else in the world could possibly understand.

Burch knew, and Burch had been a threat, but Scott’s pretty sure the chances of that are over. Some people deserve prison: the violent, the corrupt. Scott was neither. Burch was definitely the latter. That was behind them.

But if Ava knew, and Bill knew, and Burch knew… who else knew?

* * *

Cassie’s voice had brought him back to life.

The first time. He’d done what any good parent would do: sacrifice himself to save his child. Paxton was willing to do it for Cassie, and she wasn’t even his flesh and blood. Scott was the only one with the means to truly save her, and it hadn’t even been a debate for him: he would commit himself to an eternity of madness just so she could grow up.

Maybe that’s part of the reason he became entangled with Janet. Not that there’s any scientific basis to it - not that he understands any of the science behind this to begin with - but Janet had, without even thinking of herself, gone subatomic so she could save so, so many others. Maybe not Hope directly, but tangentially…? And that for all his flaws, he could have something in common with so extraordinary a woman…?

He’d had the tech on hand to save himself. Equally as important, he’d had the motivation to do so, too. He’d needed both. Janet hadn’t had the tech, and she hadn’t had her pleading daughter’s voice echoing the quantum realm around her to snap her into anything she might have been able to do. He’s no better than her; he was luckier.

This time, he doesn’t have Cassie’s voice.

* * *

The thing about a completely different set of rules of existence is that Scott has no means to understand the passage of time. He could count the individual seconds and he wouldn’t know if they were actual seconds. Being subatomic means absolutely no chance of accessing an atomic clock. Or anything, really.

For all he knows it’s already been 30 years, and Hope hasn’t been able to fix the problem.

He doesn’t think it’s been 30 years.

But maybe there isn’t a problem with the equipment. It’s not like they sent him off to the quantum realm willy nilly; all four of them were incredibly well versed in its dangers, some more than most. They knew it worked. The mic check had been a formality. They were literally two seconds away from extracting him.

So something else went wrong. In the physical world.

Scott screams again, panic bubbling back up in his body. Someone else had to know about what they were doing. And it’s not like they were in a crowded area, but all it would take would be one person getting the drop; he used to do that stuff for a living, he would know. And of the three of them, Hope was the only real fighter. And if someone had gotten to her first…

Hope, Hank, and Janet could be knocked out. They could be tied up, imprisoned. They could be trying to locate their equipment again and bring him back.

They’re probably dead.

Scott isn’t naive. He’s been around some of the worst of the worst. He’s been in prison fights, he’s been in lockdowns, he’s seen people get stabbed and bleed out over far, far less. Hell, he’s technically a murderer; sure, killing Cross had been self-defence, but taking a life is still taking a life.

And this tech is beyond valuable. It’s the kind of a thing a Stark could only dream of, and he’s so lucky to be one of the few people entrusted with it. People would kill for it. People not like Ava, actually terrible people without a soul.

For that, he’s paying one price. Hope, Hank, and Janet paid the other.

So Scott screams, panic giving way to rage. He’s less freaked out that he isn’t being brought back and more ready to murder everyone and anyone responsible for the deaths of his new extended family, and he makes that extremely clear to whoever may be listening on the other side. Is that conducive to them extracting him? No, but it’s a promise he needs to vocalize because absolutely nothing is going to stop him from carrying it out.

* * *

Is Cassie safe?

He wouldn’t mind this if he knew his little girl was okay. When he first went subatomic, he knew his little girl was going to be okay, and that was going to make whatever his fate would be acceptable. He couldn’t go mad if he knew he had done the right thing, if he knew that he had given Cassie a chance at life, to grow up, to know that her father loved her and had only abandoned her because he absolutely had to.

This time, no goodbyes. She’d never know what happened to him. Maybe she’d forgive him one day, maybe she never would.

But he’d take that if he knew she was safe.

If someone was going after him, then they might be going after her, too.

And he has no way of knowing, no way of helping, no way of ever seeing her again.

Scott curls in on himself and tries to sleep in a realm he cannot.

* * *

If Janet could do this for 30 years, then who’s to say he can’t? Janet had something to live for. So does he. And in Scott’s case, there are people who know it’s possible to rescue him. Janet didn’t have that.

Janet had… nothing. She really, truly had nothing. No hope, no Hope. And still, she carried on. Sure, she came in equipped with a better knowledge of quantum physics than he’ll ever have, but really, what kind of preparation is that? Scott looks around his new world and knows absolutely no level of understanding could ever prepare someone for something like this.

If she could do it, so can he.

Scott already knows he isn’t strong enough.

* * *

There’s another possibility: Scott is expendable.

He always has been. There’s nothing particularly special about him, and Hank has no emotional attachment to him. That’s how he ended up in all of this in the first place: because he was exploitable, stupid, and ultimately, he could be tossed aside as soon as nobody needed him anymore.

It’s not much of a stretch to consider; really, it fits in perfectly with his life trajectory to date. He’s more a nuisance than anything else. Hope can fight on her own; Hope is already so much better than him in every single conceivable way. Hank has made it clear he never liked him. And Janet only ever had use for him as a vessel. Once he completed his duties there… well, what further use would any Pym or van Dyne have for someone like Scott?

It hurts more than he thought it would. He thought he’d had a partner in Hope; not just someone to fight alongside, but a new life partner. Cassie loved her. They were going to do a big group dinner with Maggie and Paxton soon. Four parents for the best kid, twice the love and all that she deserved.

But if anyone would be the fifth wheel, it would be him. Hope must have recognized Cassie would be better off without him. He agrees. And what better way to get rid of somebody than by ensuring there’s no body, that they’ll never be found? It’s brilliant, just like that entire family is, in a way he could never be.

Scott doesn’t scream anymore. He knows there’s no point. Nobody is coming for him - and he doesn’t deserve it, anyway.

* * *

He can’t talk to tardigrades like he could ants.

He misses ants so much.

Janet had said to stay away from them, that they’ll eat you. Scott figures she’d know better than anyone else.

But really, what would the difference be, at this point?

There are no tardigrades around - just his luck.

* * *

Scott takes off his helmet.

He continues to breathe, live, survive.

He puts the helmet back on. No sense in losing it when he’s already lost everything else.

* * *

Hope had forgiven him.

He never thought it would happen. He never would have forgiven himself. Impulsive, reckless, selfish actions had been the undoing of every aspect of his life, and running off to Germany with secret, powerful tech had taken things way too far. 

What did it mean to help Captain America when he had forced a self-imposed exile on himself from those he actually knew and loved? What did it mean to maybe gain his trust - he barely even knew the guy - when he had shattered the trust of everyone around him? Was it worth it to never speak to Hope again for this one asinine shot at glory, a chance to do the right thing in a fight that was never even his?

Yeah, she had been pissed. She had cried. She had hit him, she had pushed him away both literally and figuratively. She only came back to him because he was an irreplaceable key in the cog to maybe finding her mother again.

But when they were back side by side it was like they had never been apart. Even when he continued to screw up, she had his back.

He’d been fully embraced by her. Life was turning itself around. This time, he might have actually gotten things right: maybe the first time he had since Cassie had been born.

* * *

Cassie said she would have his back. She wanted to, maybe more than anything else. He wanted to let her, just… not yet. At some point he would have to pretend he was actually responsible, and there was absolutely no better place than with her.

She was growing up, her adult teeth coming in, bed time getting later, doing well in school. She was well-adjusted to her two different homes. She was proud of him. And though the absolute last thing he would ever want her to do is become a criminal like he had, he honestly could envision a future in which she had his back. It would be far off from the present, but it could have happened.

Maggie and Paxton would give her stability. Hope and Scott would have given her something more extraordinary. And she could have combined the two to be someone great: someone capable of doing more, but always grounded enough to know when she was doing the right thing, and how to do it the right way. Not like her dad at all, but so much better.

Scott was never, ever going to let her screw up the way he did.

She got the best parts of him, though. Her enthusiasm for life, her sense of adventure, her unbreakable love for everyone in her family, her desire to just help people however she could: whether it be by convincing him to do the right thing, or her building towards being able to do the right thing herself once she was old enough to take those steps into that world.

He was going to hold her hand every step of the way.

He’ll never hold her hand again.

* * *

Scott drifts.


End file.
